Mortal Mischief

'Very clever! I'll have it back now!'

Otto pointed at the vodka bottle.

Lili leaned forward, and said softly: 'Well, I never . . .' Her ring was inside – where it had apparently floated to the bottom.

'Now we'll have to drink the whole lot to get it out,' said Otto.

Lili laughed loudly – like a rattle. She edged closer, and as she did so Otto felt her hand slide across his thigh.

'Show me another one,' said Lili. 'Go on.'

'All right,' said Otto. He took the last three coins from his pocket and laid them out in a row. 'I want you to watch very, very carefully . . .'

7

THE MORGUE WAS cavernous and cold. A large electric light suspended at the end of a long cord hung several feet above the body. Its wide conical shade created a pool of illumination beyond which it was difficult to see anything but shadow.

Professor Mathias peeled back one of the mortuary sheets and examined Fraulein Lowenstein's face. Her skin was without blemish and under the close light her hair shone brighter than ever. Although her lips were no longer red but a curious blue, she was still very beautiful. Indeed, the strange colouring of her lips seemed to add a further dimension to her unnatural perfection. She looked, to Rheinhardt, like an exotic doll.

'Forgive me,' said Mathias. 'What did you say her name was?'

'Does it matter, Herr Professor?'

Mathias looked over his glasses

'Of course it matters, Inspector.'

Rheinhardt shrugged.

'Her name was Charlotte Lowenstein.'

Mathias looked down at the woman's angelic face and repositioned a spiral of her hair. Then, after a few moments' silence, he rested his knuckles against her cheek and began to intone: 'Lotte! Lotte! Just one more word! Just a word of farewell! Farewell, Lotte! For ever adieu!'

'Goethe,' said Rheinhardt.

'Well done, Inspector. The Sorrows, of course.'

Mathias did not remove his hand. Instead, he stared at the corpse, his face brimming with compassion.

Rheinhardt coughed, somewhat disconcerted by the professor's eccentricities.

'Professor. If we could proceed . . .'

Mathias sniffed in disapproval.

'When you work with the dead, Rheinhardt, you learn to take things slowly.' He continued to gaze at the Fraulein's face, and as he did so he sighed, his breath clouding the air. Mathias turned to look at Rheinhardt, his head descending and rising with almost bovine slowness. His rheumy eyes swam behind thick magnifying lenses. 'Do the dead make you uncomfortable, Rheinhardt?'

'Actually, Professor, they do.'

'Be that as it may,' said Mathias, 'it is my belief that the dead are still deserving of small courtesies.' Saying that, the professor covered Fraulein Lowenstein's face, and under his breath continued to quote from The Sorrows of Young Werther:

'Be of peaceful heart . . .'

Rheinhardt was relieved when Mathias finally snapped out of his abstracted state and began to show signs of industry. The professor rolled up his shirtsleeves, tied his apron, and began to arrange the tools of his trade on a white metal trolley: knives, saws, chisels, small metal mallets, and a drill. The professor was clearly unhappy with the arrangement and began tinkering with the positions of several objects. Rheinhardt could see no obvious reason for these trivial changes, and suspected that Mathias was engaging in some obscure superstitious ritual. After a few minutes of deliberation, the professor nodded, and his expression changed from mild anxiety to satisfaction.

'Let us begin,' he said.

Mathias picked up an oversized pair of scissors and began cutting the corpse's dress. He began in the middle of the decolletage and proceeded down to the waist. When the cut was complete, he tugged gently at the material: dried blood had made it adhere to the corpse's skin. The material came away gradually, revealing Charlotte Lowenstein's naked breasts and torso.

'No corset,' commented Mathias.

He pulled at the sheets, covering the body so that nothing was exposed except the blood-encrusted crater over Fraulein Lowenstein's heart. When one of the dead woman's nipples threatened to reappear, Mathias repositioned the sheet to protect her modesty.

'I beg your pardon,' he said softly.

Rheinhardt was finding Mathias's sympathy for the dead both tiresome and macabre.

The old man probed gently around the wound with the tips of his fingers. As he did so, he started to hum a tune. Rheinhardt listened to the first verse and wondered whether he was being tested again. He found it impossible not to rise to such easy bait.

'Schubert.'

The professor stopped, ending his impromptu recital on a wheezy, unsteady note. The sound called to mind a set of ancient bellows closing.

'Is it? The tune just came into my head. I don't know what it is.'

'It's Schubert.

Das Wandern. . .'

'Ah yes, I remember now. You sing a little, don't you?'

'A little . . .'

'Das Wandern, eh?'

'Without a doubt.'

Mathias began to hum again and continued probing the wound. He then took a magnifying glass from his trolley and lowered his head to get a closer look. The professor suddenly stopped humming mid-phrase, and gasped. After a moment's silence, he said in a dramatic stage whisper, 'Ahh, yes.'

'What is it?' asked Rheinhardt.

'She's been shot,' replied Mathias.

Rheinhardt sighed.

'I thought we had already established that, Professor.'

Mathias shook his head.

'I have always been a great believer, Rheinhardt, in the Roman dictum: festina lente. More haste, less speed.'

'You know,' said Rheinhardt, 'I can't say that surprises me.'

The professor ignored Rheinhardt's pointed remark and continued his leisurely inspection. Closing one eye, the old man altered the focal length of the magnifying glass and nodded. Then, speaking more to himself than to Rheinhardt, he said: 'A direct shot – into the heart, at close range. There are the powder burns and . . . yes, I see some muzzle bruising.'

Rheinhardt's fingers were going numb, and he was beginning to regret seeking Professor Mathias's assistance. Mathias returned the magnifying glass to its special position on the trolley and picked up a medium- sized silver knife. He then made a deep cut in Fraulein Lowenstein's white flesh, which opened with the slow grace of a scallop shell, exposing the pulpy redness within. Rheinhardt had attended many autopsies but he still found them highly disturbing.

'Excuse me, Herr Professor,' Rheinhardt took a step backwards. 'I think I'll leave you to it.'

'As you wish, Inspector,' said Mathias, clearly becoming more absorbed in his task.

Rheinhardt walked around the autopsy table and out into the darkness. Behind him he could hear Mathias sorting through his tools. First he heard some tapping, and then the grating of a saw. Rheinhardt assumed that Mathias was removing a rib. As Mathias worked, he began to hum the Schubert tune again. His performance was